her bunch of cattle was
shipped away.

Bud, Dick and Nort hazed them over to the railroad, and on the trip a
small-sized stampede gave them all they wanted to handle. But they
were true sons of the west, and did not complain.

"Whew! That was hot, while it lasted!" exclaimed Bud, as he and
cousins managed to get the stampeding animals quieted, after they had
tried so hard to run off by themselves, in varying directions.

"Yes, a thing like that gives you an appetite," remarked Dick.

"As if _you_ ever needed any stimulant!" laughed Nort. "I never saw
the time yet when you had to be offered an inducement to sit up to
grub!"

"You either!" retorted the stout lad. "But, speaking of grub, when do
we eat, Bud?"

"Might as well make it right soon," was the answer. "Now that we have
the steers quieted they'll be glad enough to take it easy. I planned
to water 'em at the next stopping place, and that will give us a chance
to see what Buck Tooth put up for us."

"Stay there all night; will we?" asked Nort.

"Might as well," assented his cousin. "No use running all the fat off
our stock. We want 'em to weigh as heavy as possible."

This was good business tact on the part of the boy ranchers. For
cattle are generally sold by weight, either "on the hoof," which means
alive and as they stand in the stock yards, or by weight after being
slaughtered. In the case of ranchers "on the hoof" is generally
understood.

And driving a bunch of steers at too great a speed from the ranch to
the railroad would make them thin, "running off their fat," so to
speak, thus losing all the advantages of the rich fodder to which they
had had access. And when it is considered that it is not at all
difficult to cause a steer to lose from ten to fifteen pounds by means
of poor driving, and when to this statement is added the fact that this
loss is multiplied in hundreds of steers, Bud's state of mind can
easily be imagined.

"Yes, we'll get 'em quieted down, and take it easy ourselves,"
suggested the Western lad. And, a little later when some of the steers
broke into a run, Nort exclaimed:

"Are they stampeding again?"

"No. I reckon they just smell water," Bud answered.

This proved to be true, and this contagion spread all through the herd,
though with no ill effects, for the water hole was not far off and,
reaching it, the animals stopped to drink.

There was some confusion and excitement because so many thirsty cattle